Harry Winks

Entertaining the concept... Modric has an amazing range of midfield abilities. Everyone knows of his first touch, awareness and the incredible speed he switches play. But I reckon only those who have watched him every week realise how underrated his defensive positioning is. At the Bernabeu I was so frustrated at how often Spurs' attempts at a quick counter attack were broken up by a Modric tackle or interception. And then within a second he's pinged the ball over to Marcelo. In my opinion he's the world's most complete CM.

Dismissing awards won is ignorant. Kroos didn't win the best midfielder award, Modric did. Kroos wasn't one of Ronaldo's Ballon d'or picks, Modric was. Of course awards are made possible by the team's effort. But you don't seem to realise that in this case the team operates largely through Luka, defensively and offensively. He's the heartbeat of Europe's best team.
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If there is one thing I'll say Modric is clearly superior at, it's his greater defensive sturdiness in the role. Cazorla is more lightweight. Modric is also that bit more consistent. His mentality and calmness and focus in pressure matches is better. But to be honest, I watch him a lot and wonder whether it's not simply the mental security resulting from having a great team of players around you.

On a technical level, I struggle to see why anyone would remotely find it ridiculous to put Modric and Cazorla in the same sentence. That is what I consider ludicrous. Cazorla's passing range (with both feet too) is every bit as good as Modric. Not only can he switch play and probe with it and maintain a high efficiency between the late 80's to the 90's in completion rate, he is more creative with it. By a pretty comfortable margin too. This is why he's considerably more effective as an attacking midfielder, scoring or assisting even from a deep role than when Modric played the role.
Modric is one of the most technically outstanding midfielders in the world, but Cazorla falls among the very small handful of midfielders he has squat on in this aspect. There's nothing Modric does with the ball that Cazorla doesn't. There just isn't, which was what started this tangent from the main article.

I have not dismissed awards. But the fact is he wouldn't get near it if he was in Tottenham. Real Madrid have been sweeping most of the awards over the last 3/4 years. Every single year, Ramos cleans up defensive awards even though no one will ever really remember him as a truly great defender. And the likes of Marcelo and Kroos too. Iniesta makes the FIFPro 11 of the year (since 2009 without fail) every single year even though he's been mediocre for the best part of the last 3 years and struggled with injuries and is clearly on his last legs. So telling me because Cazorla never won UEFA midfielder of the year, that he somehow doesn't belong in a sentence with Modric is absurd.

Comparing Carzola to Modric is this some kind of a joke. One is the the heartbeat of the biggest club side in the world. The other has not kicked a ball for nearly two years for a Ropey League club.

Honestly it is a non contest.

And no, Modric is not the most "complete" midfielder in the world. If anything, Modric is outstanding at a limited skillset. He and Veratti in PSG are currently the best type of their midfielders in the world. They can receive the ball and link up play in tight spaces and bring continuity to the attack. You could even add David Silva currently to the list cos Pep has deployed him in that deeper probing role and he's considerably more creative in attacking positions than Modric.

Cazorla is a great player but not on Modric's level. Modeic has been key for Madrid last 4-5 years and if Cazorla moved to Madrid at same time he would likely be on edge of first XI.

Comparing Carzola to Modric is this some kind of a joke. One is the the heartbeat of the biggest club side in the world. The other has not kicked a ball for nearly two years for a Ropey League club.

Honestly it is a non contest.
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One has Ronaldo scoring 50 goals a season and an attacking line that hit 100 goals a season (where even bench-warming Morata hit 25 goals in a season). The other played with Giroud, Gervinho, Sanogo and co.

You could probably put even Winks in that Madrid team and they'd have still smashed teams.

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comment by Kunta Kinte Kante Conte (U1641)
posted 3 minutes ago
Cazorla is a great player but not on Modric's level. Modeic has been key for Madrid last 4-5 years and if Cazorla moved to Madrid at same time he would likely be on edge of first XI.
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Modric was a bench-warmer in his first season at Madrid and even got voted the worst signing of the season.
Ozil and Di Maria's departure saw the midfield restructured somewhat. The team that Modric took over as the CM playmaker, Cazorla would have walked into that side at the time. He clearly wouldn't now being 32 and having missed 2 years.

And I don't really dispute the claim he's above Cazorla's level. I've said so myself. I addressed the earlier outlandish claim that they were somehow on different planets. And I haven't seen this substantiated in any way other than telling me he won this and that.

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